The cute animated characters work in the background, gathering information while you do other things. When they have something to tell you, they popup, deliver their message, then disappear. You tell CyberBuddy what you want it to look for, and when to tell you about it. For example, tell it what news categories you'd like to hear about, how often to check for news and whether only to tell you about it when the news changes. For stocks, tell it that you want to hear about a stock when it goes up, down or changes outside of some limits you have set. It's extremely flexible. You can even have different characters deliver the content of different functions. CyberBuddy is a must have.